Brothress Chen
(Chen, Andrea )
Sublime Soror and
Nubile Neu-Neutopian
Usenet Sex Goddess
Soror Chen speaketh forth on Kali, BABALON, the O.T.O.,
the Great Beast 666 and other rilly cool alien pstuff
BAHLASTI PAPERS
Newsletter of Kali Lodge
Ordo Templi Orientis
April 1992 e.v. An IIIxxi Sol in Aries Volume VI, no. 8 .
Address all inquiries to:
BAHLASTI PAPERS
c/o Kali Lodge
Ordo Templi Orientis
Post Office Box 15038
New Orleans, LA 70115
Contributors to this issue:
Soror Chen, Frater Turbator, Frater NChSh,
Frater Lugis Thor, Frater Numa 718, Nema,
C.R. Torrey, Margrat, Soror Nancy, Jet Satin
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So, right after doing our Inter-Kontinental Kali Working, my husband
gave me a copy of Angry Women, and then we saw Thelma and Louise.
Now I'm sure that soon women are just going to go crazy from all the
shit they take all the time, and they're going to start commiting
random acts of violence and desperation. This, then, is the "Wimmen
on the Edge" issue of the Bahlasti Papers, in which we will vent
before we explode or blow something up...
FROM THE DESK OF THE GRAND PUBAETTE
"Magnificent beasts of women with large limbs, and fire and light in
their eyes, and masses of flaming hair about them...."
What a beautiful and powerful image! So why have I been afraid to
approach this article? Is it because my mother was such a terror? Or
because Crowley's Babalons ended up abandoned dipsomaniacs, raving,
mad, manic, lost? Or because I fear that Babalon will forever
challenge and ultimately consume any shreds of security that I've
managed to build into my life? Babalon has been a difficult
archetype for me to understand. I was not raised by religious
parents, so the images of Babalon in Revelations are not
particularly shocking to me.
My Great-Grandmother, after whom I was
named, was a Suffragette. My Mother was one of the strongest and
smartest people I have ever known. She was large-limbed and
athletic, fiery and fierce. But she was an unspeakably difficult
person. Madness overwhelmed her psyche, terrifying us, her children.
She was a Babalon locked in the cage of society. My Mother's life
was war. She taught her girls how to be fierce, independent, and
strong, but she also taught us how to allure and control men. She
understood sexual politics, and feeling trapped by social
programming, wanted a way to control from within a woman's role,
secretly and manipulatively. In return, we were taught by our Father
that strong women are a problem, are out of line, unfeminine and
sick. Behave. Be nice. Don't be a raving bitch like your Mother.
Things aren't so terribly different now than when I was growing up.
The Thompson Senate hearings showed our subtle, secret, and instant
mistrust of women. Strong women who are equal and armed with truth
and integrity are bad, dangerous, unladylike.
Crowley tried to establish a different role for women. Yet his basic
lack of respect for, and understanding of women is betrayed by the
bulk of his writing. His novels, in particular, preach his
convenient and offensive view that a woman's "True Will" should be
that of a help-meet to her man's work. He considered women to be an
inferior subspecies of humanity. His Scarlet Women embodied Babalon
by virtue of being fucked by "The Beast".
Leah Hirsig's diaries
chronicle a tragic descent into madness. When Crowley changed bed
partners, Leah was abandoned by her lover, her identity, and her
purpose. She wisely longed to have a ritual in which the old Scarlet
Woman would pass on the bloodline to the new Queen Bee, but she
never recognised her own calling and right, nor ever got beyond the
idea of there being only one title-bearing Babalon. I feel love and
gratitude to Leah. But she was a martyr, and martyrs are a waste.
Is being Babalon any different than being someone's wife? A woman in
a relationship is property, owned by the man. She's his girlfriend,
his wife. Nema once asked if Babalon exists independently of The
Beast...
A few years ago I met a woman who was Babalon to a famous magician's
Beast. It was a very important meeting for me. She was beautiful--
looking like a crone with long hair and an intricate network of fine
lines all over her face. At the time I was wondering if there were
any female Magistrar Templis out there. Her paintings are stunning,
magical, powerful. Her poetry staggering, inspired, and her catalog
of experience rich, extreme, vivid. I asked her to find a scribe and
pass on her bloodline, but she was uncomfortable with the idea. I
had the impression of a woman who was locked into her own
mythology-- her own exclusive hold on experience, grief , mystery.
She had grown bitter and mean through coveting her title. I felt she
had no more trust or love for women than did society. She did not
seem to feel that all women can embody Babalon. I asked her if she
thought women could do a Babalon Working for themselves, as opposed
to having Babalon invoked upon them. She did not answer. My meeting
with this woman was devastating for me. So much potential. A woman's
genius. A gift to the world that was not given. When you believe in
your own myth, it explodes.
In the years that I have spent in the O.T.O., I have encountered two
versions of the sexual role of Babalon as wanton harlot: One in
which a woman devotes herself to one Beast and loves all men through
him; and one in which a woman has sexual relations with as many men
as are willing in order to fairly literally love "all". In this, as
in all things, I believe it is only valid to follow your own bliss.
Babalon's sexual license requires freedom from pedestrian moral
judgement. It is not easy to get around negative self-image and not
restrict behavior on one hand, or overcompensate with wildly
self-destructive or compromising behavior on the other. But
Babalon's beauty comes from knowing her self, and radiating that
self, unfettered, to the world.
In the end, particular questions of Babalon's sexuality-- whether
she should be promiscuous or monogamous, whether she should be on
top or bottom, etc., etc.--are really missing the mark. These are
intellectual questions that, for me, reduce us to the literal and
robs meaning of dimension. I see "Babalon astride the Beast, holding
the reins of compassion that unite them" in a different light.
Perhaps it is because I feel women need to start invoking Babalon
upon themselves through acts of devotion and ritual. We need to
trust the image of the strong, powerful, glorious woman, and let her
come through us. For me, artistic creation is a means of invocation.
Artistic genius creates directly from the Divine without
translation, description, or explanation. It requires an initial
descent into Hell, but if you survive you get strong enough to hold
those reins of passion and create-- genius!
I envision a world where all women are strong and beautiful. I look
forward to a world which reflects the gifts of women's genius.
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